Oleh Asrori S. Karni, Hikmah September 2008
Kisah Ikal dan kawan-kawannya yang diceritakan dengan apik oleh Andrea Hirata dalam tetralogi
Laskar Pelangi menginspirasi banyak kalangan.
- Sekian orang yang mengabdikan diri pada profesi tertentu tanpa pamrih mendadak mendapat energi baru.
- Sejumlah pemuda yang selalu resah tiba-tiba mendapat kekuatan batin baru untuk bangkit dari mental cengeng. … continue reading this entry.
PORTLAND, Ore. – Bookseller Borders Group Inc. said Tuesday that it narrowed its losses and slashed its
debt during the second quarter, but continued to see sales slow as consumers limited their discretionary spending.
The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company said it lost $9.2 million, or 15 cents a share, for the quarter ending Aug. 2. That compares with a loss of $25.1 million, or 43 cents a share for the same quarter of last year.
“We’re very pleased,” Borders Group CEO George Jones told The Associated Press. “We feel like we’ve been managing our business very well and cutting expenses.”
Investors greeted the results with optimism, sending Borders’ shares up more than 7 percent in after-hours trading.
The company, which has been restructuring and selling some business units, said that it lost $11.3 million, or 19 cents a share, from its continuing operations, compared with a loss of $18.1 million, or 31 cents a share, last year. … continue reading this entry.
Sumber : Yahoo! News, 16 Agustus 2008, Sat Aug 16, 9:49 PM ET
CARACAS, Venezuela – Peruvian novelist and politician Mario Vargas Llosa says Barack Obama would make a “magnificent” U.S. president.
The prize-winning writer says Obama “represents the American dream,” though he also respects rival candidate John McCain.
One of Latin America’s best known writers, Vargas Llosa ran for Peru’s presidency in 1990, but lost to Alberto Fujimori.
He spoke to reporters on Saturday in Venezuela, where one of his plays is being performed. … continue reading this entry.
NEW YORK – A new book about Sen. Barack Obama has intensified a rivalry between two powerful competitors: Barnes & Noble, Inc. and Amazon.com.
Chelsea Green Publishing, a small, liberal publisher based in Vermont, is releasing Robert Kuttner’s “Obama’s Challenge,” a call for Obama to enact a bold, progressive economic agenda. It plans to distribute copies at next week’s Democratic National Convention, where Obama is expected to get the party’s presidential nomination.
Angering both Barnes & Noble and independent sellers, the publisher also will distribute coupons that can be redeemed exclusively through Amazon.com’s BookSurge, a “print-on-demand” service that through digital technology enables books to be printed in small quantities. … continue reading this entry.
“In the Land of Invisible Women” (Sourcebooks Inc. 464 pages, $24.95) by Qanta A. Ahmed: Most job
contracts don’t include mentions of the death penalty, but when Dr. Qanta A. Ahmed agreed to a new job in a Saudi Arabian hospital she became subject to the laws of that country which, as she writes in her memoir, can include decapitation.
After being denied a visa to stay in the United States, Ahmed, decides at “the spur of the moment” to accept a job practicing intensive care medicine at the King Fahad National Guard Hospital in Riyadh, the capitol of Saudi Arabia.
During her two-year stint, in which she works with an assortment of Saudi men and women as well as nurses and doctors from around the world, she encounters almost daily situations for which no American medical school could have prepared her: a female patient who is comatose but whose face still needs to be properly veiled; female medical personnel trying to listen attentively to a patient’s heartbeat through the rustling fabric of an abbayah, the long black head covering worn by women in Saudi Arabia. … continue reading this entry.
NEW YORK (Billboard) – Peter Buck of R.E.M., “SNL” star Amy Poehler and novelist Jonathan Lethem are among the curators of a limited-edition series of CDs that will mark the 20th anniversary of North Carolina independent label Merge Records.
SCORE!, a subscription-only boxed set, will feature 14 custom-curated discs comprising material from the Merge catalog, along with original artwork.
The first two discs will be curated by Buck and “Junebug” director Phil Morrison. In addition to Poehler and Lethem, curators of future volumes include musician David Byrne, artist Marcel Dzama and Momofuku chef David Chang.
Quantities of the discs will be limited to the number of people who preorder the series between September 8 and January 2009, when the first two volumes are scheduled for delivery. Proceeds from SCORE! will benefit charities chosen by the individual curators. … continue reading this entry.
EDINBURGH (Reuters) – She was a teenager from Dublin looking to make her name as a journalist whe
n American author Ernest Hemingway entered her life in 1959.
The young Irishwoman became his secretary and traveling companion, and after his death married his son.
Decades later, Valerie Hemingway brought her memories of daiquiris in tropical Cuba and bullfights in Spain to rainy Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital.
She teamed up with Scottish director Toby Gough and a Cuban music and dance group to recreate the Havana of the 1950s in a stage production called “Hemingway’s Havana” as part of last week’s Fringe Festival.
“Hemingway loved Cuba because it was a place where he could be anonymous,” she said in an interview with Reuters. … continue reading this entry.
Sumber : Harian Republik, 2008-08-31 14:44:00
Inilah novel yang betul-betul mengangkat realitas kehidupan para pengungsi Palestina
Apakah yang kita bayangkan tentang para wanita Palestina? Palestina adalah sebuah negeri yang selama 60 tahun dilanda peperangan tiada henti melawan pendudukan Zionis Israel yang didukung Barat, khususnya Amerika.
Satu hal yang pasti, negeri yang semula permai dan makmur itu telah melahirkan pahlawan demi pahlawan yang tak pernah kenal menyerah untuk membebaskan Masjid Aqsha dari penjajahan Israel.
Dan, para pahlawan itu, tidak hanya dari kalangan kaum prianya, melainkan juga para wanitanya. Kaum wanita Palestina tidak hanya melahirkan para pejuang (mujahid) yang berani menjemput maut dengan senyuman, akan tetapi mereka pun terlibat langsung dalam kancah peperangan melawan tentara dan penduduk Israel yang didatangkan dari berbagai Negara. … continue reading this entry.
Sumber : Yahoo! News, Mon Aug 11, 8:56 PM ET
NEW YORK – Whether they like him or oppose him, readers want to hear more about Barack Obama.
“The Obama Nation,” an anti-Obama book written by Jerome V. Corsi, will debut at No. 1 come Sunday on The New York Times’ hardcover nonfiction best-seller list. Corsi was co-author of “Unfit for Command,” an influential 2004 best-seller that condemned the Vietnam War record of then Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
Obama, the Democrats’ presumptive nominee in 2008, is himself the author of the million-selling “Dreams From My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope.”
Interest in him is so strong that even an upcoming policy book, usually the toughest of sells, is catching on. A compilation of speeches and policy statements by Obama and his campaign staff, “Change We Can Believe In,” had reached the top 75 on Amazon.com by Monday evening, less than a day after The Associated Press reported the book would come out in September. … continue reading this entry.
Sumber : Yahoo! News
B
y ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, Associated Press Writer Mon Aug 11, 3:44 PM ET
“The Power of Place” (Oxford University Press. 280 pages. $27.95), by Harm de Blij: Consider this: During the last two decades of the 20th century, Texas reported 64 cases of dengue fever
By contrast, the three Mexican states bordering Texas reported 62,514 cases during the same time.
One big difference: Window screens and air conditioning were relatively rare on the Mexican side, making it easier for dengue-carrying mosquitoes to spread the disease.
“Extrapolate these circumstances to the availability of medical services on the two sides, and it is clear that even on the doorstep of the global core, the medical landscape is anything but flat,” geographer Harm de Blij (HARM dee BLY) writes in his latest book, “The Power of Place.” … continue reading this entry.
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